Silver-filled glass pastes are extensively used for bonding semi-conductive devices to ceramic substrates. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,479,774; 4,401,767; 4,436,785; 4,459,166 and Ser. No. 801,389, the disclosures of these patents and application being incorporated herein by reference.
Broadly speaking, these prior art pastes comprise a mixture of silver powder or flake and glass particles or frit in a liquid organic vehicle. The vehicle usually comprises an aliphatic hydrocarbon or alcohol with a small amount of thermoplastic polymer, e.g., an acrylate or methacrylate, dissolved therein.
Pastes of the above type are now extensively used for bonding semi-conductive devices to ceramic substrates and they demonstrate a variety of advantages over prior compositions, e.g., gold-based bonding compositions. However, notwithstanding the advantages of the silver-based compositions exemplified in said above-mentioned patents and application, it is still desirable to have compositions which wil provide even further improvements in performance.